The '''Attorney General's list''' of [[subversion (political)|subversive]] oganizations was published on the ''Federal Register 13'' on 20 March 1948. The list consists of organizations classified as Soviet communist controlled.

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The '''Attorney General's list''' originally known as the '''Biddle list''' (after Attorney General [[Francis Biddle]]) began during the administration of U.S. President [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]] in 1941, during the [[Nazi-Soviet pact]], to track [[Nazi]], [[fascist]] and [[USSR|Soviet]]-controlled [[subversion (political)|subversive]] [[front organization]]s. The original list had only eleven organizations but was greatly expanded by the end of the decade.<ref>M. Stanton Evans, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=tQt3AAAAMAAJ&pgis=1 Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies]'' (New York: Crown Forum, 2007) ISBN 978-1-4000-8105-9, pp. 55-60, notes).</ref>

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Communist groups, which emerged both in the pre-war and the post-war list, are marked by one "". In the meantime some trade unions communists had excluded other openly communist groups from their membership lists, were dissolved, partially also by government resolution. Although [[Roosevelt]] had forbidden hearing messages between the Soviet Union and America and/or Canada, the secret services did not adhere to it. The [[Venona project]] revealed massive inifiltration of American institutions, government, social and political life by operatives of a foreign government. The fact that someone was a member at a federation, a committee or a Soviet group of supports, did not mean still for a long time that this person was an active communist or a feeler gauge. Thousands of people with an inclination for [[liberal]] thinking became members, without being or the ideas of communism support thereby communists. The variety of these groups shows however completely clearly that Moscow infinitely set up many traps for the harmless ones and the sympathizers, in order to then recruit into the communist underground from these groups.

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On March 21, 1947, [[President of the United States|President]] [[Harry Truman]] promulgated [[Executive Order 9835]],<ref>[http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/1947.html#9835 Executive Order 9835], National Archives</ref> directing the Attorney General to furnish the Loyalty Review Board with:

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{{cquote|the name of each foreign or domestic organization, association, movement, group or combination of persons which the Attorney General, after appropriate investigation and determination, designates as totalitarian, fascist, communist or subversive, or as having adopted a policy of advocating or approving the commission of acts of force or violence to deny others their rights under the Constitution of the United States, or as seeking to alter the form of government of the United States by unconstitutional means.<ref>[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/executiveorders/index.php?pid=502&st=loyalty&st1= Executive Order 9835], Harry S. Truman Library and Museum</ref>}}

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Attorney General [[Tom Clark]] compiled the list, and on March 20, 1948 it was published in the ''Federal Register.''<ref>[http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CC0QFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hist.umn.edu%2Fhist1015%2Fw97%2520The%2520Attorney%2520General%2527s%2520List%2520of%2520Subversive%2520Organizations%25201948.doc&ei=xYdMTJKHGsH-8AbAq-U0&usg=AFQjCNGt_fSSklweRGgyyaqMe2EVpL3CAg Attorney General's list], ''Federal Register 13'', (20 March 1948).</ref> It did not list individuals.

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Communist groups, which emerged both in the pre-war and the post-war list, are marked by one "". In the meantime some trade unions communists had excluded other openly communist groups from their membership lists, were dissolved, partially also by government resolution. The [[Venona project]] intercepted and translated messages of Soviet spies inside the U.S. reporting to Moscow, but the information was not translated until years later and was not used by the Attorney General to make the list.

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Thousands of people with an inclination for radical thinking signed petitions or became members of these groups without being aware of the Communist control of the group.

the name of each foreign or domestic organization, association, movement, group or combination of persons which the Attorney General, after appropriate investigation and determination, designates as totalitarian, fascist, communist or subversive, or as having adopted a policy of advocating or approving the commission of acts of force or violence to deny others their rights under the Constitution of the United States, or as seeking to alter the form of government of the United States by unconstitutional means.[3]

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Attorney General Tom Clark compiled the list, and on March 20, 1948 it was published in the Federal Register.[4] It did not list individuals.

Communist groups, which emerged both in the pre-war and the post-war list, are marked by one "". In the meantime some trade unions communists had excluded other openly communist groups from their membership lists, were dissolved, partially also by government resolution. The Venona project intercepted and translated messages of Soviet spies inside the U.S. reporting to Moscow, but the information was not translated until years later and was not used by the Attorney General to make the list.

Thousands of people with an inclination for radical thinking signed petitions or became members of these groups without being aware of the Communist control of the group.